“Jake—” Molly’s breath catches in her throat. “Jake was here?”
“Early this morning.”
Molly drinks in the sight of her old desk. She’d wanted so badly to take it with her when she left their apartment, but she’d been too rushed and disorganized. She can’t believe Jake kept it, after all this time.
“He said he could never bring himself to get rid of it,” Hunter adds, reading her. “He wanted you to have it back. Thought it might … spark something.”
“But where’s all your stuff?”
“I moved it to the basement. This is your space now. I can help you make it nicer.” He pauses, staring at the desk. “Jake really … knows you.”
“Hunter.” She turns to face him, reaches for his hands. “Look at me. Do you remember that day we went to Brooklyn Flea? Just after we first met?”
He nods. “Of course.”
“I’ve never told you this, but I couldn’t believe you texted me to hang out after I told you I had a boyfriend. It’s just … most guys wouldn’t have been interested, if sex was off the table. But you were so happy and willing to just be my friend, all that time, while I figured out my life. Do you have any idea how romantic that is? That you loved me like that? That you valued me like that? Because I promise you, it’s much more romantic than being Molly of ‘Molly’s Song,’ and it’s a lot realer than getting pulled up on stage in a packed arena.” She steps closer to him. “Jake knows me, but not the way you do.”
His deep brown eyes clip hers.
“No matter what anyone says, you’re Stella’s father, Hunt. You know that, don’t you? We need you.”
A tear slides down Hunter’s cheek. Molly has only seen him cry once before, at the hospital when Stella was born. “It’s a girl!” he’d exclaimed, his eyes wet, his smile reaching his ears as Molly caught her breath, in sheer awe of what had just occurred, of the tiny human that had just emerged from her own body. A miracle.
“I need you guys, too.” Hunter screws his eyes shut, more tears leaking through. “I can’t believe we lost the baby.”
“I can’t, either.” Molly’s voice breaks. She wraps her arms around his neck, staining his shirt with her own tears. She feels hopelessly sad, swallowed whole by her sadness, but she knows, as impossible as it seems, that this is harder for Hunter. She wipes the corners of his eyes, smooths the hair back from his forehead.
“What do you want to do?” he whispers.
He could mean any number of things, but they are husband and wife, and Molly knows right away what he’s asking. Above them is the sudden pitter-patter of little feet on the floor. Their daughter is awake from her nap.
Molly looks at Hunter, and his face is her home.
“We keep trying,” she tells him. “We try again.”
Epilogue
Sabrina
The worst part is finding a comfortable sleeping position. I toss and turn, wrap myself around an overpriced pregnancy pillow, but at this point, nothing helps. Oh well. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
Other than lack of shut-eye, being pregnant has been nothing short of a dream. My hair is thick and glossy, my skin dewy, and feeling his tiny elbows and knees poke around inside of me is the stuff of miracles.
His father, Hans, is six foot five and was a Division I swimmer in college—I kid you not. The sperm bank didn’t specify which college, but they did divulge that Hans graduated summa cum laude with a degree in biochemistry. An athlete and a genius—what more could you desire from a stranger’s genetic material?
When people learn that I’m having this baby on my own, they always ask me if it’s strange, not knowing the father of my child, the person who will be half of my son. A few nosy bitches have even gone so far as to ask why I went and bought sperm on the internet when I’m only thirty-two years old.
“You have plenty of time to find someone else,” they comment, inserting their own unsolicited judgment. “You can still remarry, start a family the right way.”
I resist the urge to tell them that it’s none of their damn business what I decide to do with my body or my love life; that this is the twenty-first century and there’s more than one “right way” to start a family.
It was Jake who first put the idea in my head, the night we broke up last summer. I still remember the way the anger in his eyes softened into compassion when he spoke the words.
If you want a family, Sisi, you should have one. Don’t let me be the one to stop you.